T-Mobile MVNO Ultra Mobile has made some plan changes. It has discontinued its $39 plan, added a new $54 plan and increased the amount of 3G data included with its $45 plan.

Most Ultra Mobile plans include unlimited data that starts out at full LTE speed but gets throttled to 3G speeds after you use a certain amount and then further throttled to 2G speeds after you use a bit more. Here's what's new:

The new $54 plan includes 10 GB of LTE speed data, followed by 10 GB of 3G data and then unlimited 2G data.

The $45 plan, which used to come with 5 GB of full speed data plus 2 GB of 3G data, now includes 5 GB off 3G data instead of 2 GB.

The $45 and $54 plans also include unlimited voice and messaging, including international SMS, unlimited international calling to over 60 countries and a one time $15 rollover international roaming credit. The roaming credit, which never expires, can be used to make 6¢/minute calls in Canada and Mexico and 25¢/minute calls in over 100 countries. Incoming texts are free on Ultra while roaming internationally, outgoing texts cost 2¢ in Canada and Mexico and 5¢ in the other covered countries

Here's Ultra Mobile's plan lineup after the latest changes. New values are in bold and old ones in strikeout fonts:

Prices above are before taxes and fees. Ultra charges a 2-5% regulatory cost recovery fee for all customers. plus a MTS surcharge of 5.9% to 19.7% for California residents.

Ultra Mobile operates Univision Mobile and made the similar changes to its plans. Univision plans are identical to Ultra's when it comes to domestic voice, messaging and data allotments but have unlimited calling to more Latin American countries and fewer countries in the rest of the world. Here's the new Univision lineup:

Mint saves you quite a bit when you prepay for months at a time, right? You don't have to do that with Ultra (although you could choose to do so) so if Ultra goes under, you don't have to worry about a whole lot of your money also going with them.

"As data needs increase, the pay as you go ones will survive; the others will not be able to compete well against unlimited everything."

All of this has happened before and will happen again. The MVNOs will get squeezed out, but then the MNOs' prepaid carriers will jack their prices back up, which will then open the door again for MVNOs.

We like TMobile service no matter what the name. Look for the 2 lines for $60 limited time deal on MetroPCS with 6 GB LTE on each line. It appears every 3-4 months. They also run a 2 lines for $80 Unlimited LTE at times. MetroPCS (TMobile owned prepaid)People have to do research and find a good plan. MetroPCS also has free phones at all times - some better than others but people need to look.MetroPCs speeds are not throttled: use SpeedTest app to check for yourself (after you turn off your WiFi) to test your downlaod speed on your plan

As I've said before, H2O is throttled and deprioritized to hell and back in certain areas.

I'm talking download speeds of 3mbps and more dropped signals than Cricket.

Gophone coverage is pristine and in the double digits in the exact same areas (which is why I switched to it), so either AT&T or H2O are pulling some sort of shenanigans to make the latter's coverage terrible.

100 minutes may be enough for people who don't have a social, financial or professional life (i.e. the walking dead), but talking on the phone for even 5 minutes a day burns through that completely before the month's end.

And if you need voice quality during your calls, VoIP is just too much of a crapshoot to rely on.

That, and you can't always communicate with certain parties online or via a messaging app, which makes minutes that much more valuable.

There's also the peace of mind that comes from not having to worry about a long call getting cut off, which is well worth the extra $10.

Honestly, they'd need to add another zero to that 100 in order for the $30 plan to be anything more than a glorified hotspot plan.

Dennis, could you be more specific as to what the rather vague term "3G speeds" really means? There were several variations of 3G before LTE came along, so it's hard to be sure. I know T-Mobile considers 2G to be 128kbps, but I seem to recall 3G running anywhere from 768kbps all the way to 8Mbps.

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